Into the Dark, Into the Light
by fighting-john-watsons-war
Summary: Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Such is the way of the world. And even those with a reputation for truly living must die eventually. Because if there's one thing Harry Potter has learned, death is not to be feared, but only the unknown.


_"The last enemy to be destroyed is death - isn't that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?"_  
_"It doesn't mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry. It means...you know...living beyond death. Living after death." _  
_But they were not living, thought Harry; they were gone. _  
_-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_

"Look at me, James," the old wizard croaked, reaching out one withered hand from the enormous green and gold bed.

James rushed to the bedside from his position at the window and encased the one hand with both his own, pressing it. Assuring himself it was still warm, that he could feel a beat in the wrist. Assuring himself that the man was still alive, even if only just.

"I can - feel it, you know. The way my bones creak and moan." The man snorted. "No one would ever - guess that I - killed a Dark wizard, would - they, James?"

The man started hacking and James reached out to hold him, but was stopped by a slight shake of the head.

"I'm old, James. Forgive my - sentimentality, but there are things - an old man would - wish you to know," said the man, "While he still - can tell you. James, you were named - after my father, who died in defense of me - and my godfather, who did the same. There has not - been a moment where I have not thought your name suited - you. I am always - so proud of you. Your brother - Albus, I mean, you know the meaning of his name. And just - look at him now. An Unspeakable - I was told. Working on the Veil, of all great ironies."

The man had never told his children the significance of the veil, and James would shake his head fondly as he remembered the time his father had literally fallen out of his chair when he heard what artifact Al had chosen to focus on.

"Your sister - is after your grandmother, who died for me too. Teddy - he might as well be one of our family, I know we consider him to be. Tell me - I have done right by all of you, as best I could."

The man's gaze was beseeching, pleading, eager, nervous. He felt his entire life would have been in vain if he had not done for his children everything his parents had taught him to do. He would not accept failure, and James knew this.

"Yes, Dad," his son murmured, clasping his hand even tighter. "You did."

"Then I am proud. Always proud. You have - done so well, all of you. Tell them that. Tell them I love them. Because I - do. _All_ of you."

James was seized with a panic but tried to hide it. "You'll be able to tell them yourself, Dad, this isn't it, you've still got time -"

The man shook his head insistently. "It is a fool's mistake to think he - has more than was given him. I have lived long. I have had many close brushes with death - they felt different. This one - this is final._ I know_."

"Dad..."

"Don't - be sad, James," the man wheezed, smiling faintly. "I have lived - and I would think I have lived well. I am not - scared...of death. It is the next great - adventure. And your mother - she's up there too. I have nothing to fear. It is not - into the dark I leap, but the light. Always - always the light."

The man's eyes unfocused and he seemed to recall a conversation held many years before, when he was just turned seventeen and for the first time seeing the grave that held his parents in the earth. "Living beyond death. Living after death. So long ago..."

The man focused on his son, tightened his hand into a fist and gazed at his son's warm brown eyes earnestly, never mind the fact his son's eyes were strangely glistening. "James, it is light," he assured, shocking his son with his strangely and newly empowered voice. "Light. How could that life be anything but?"

The man's eyes closed. His hand fell limp.  
James Sirius Potter began to cry.

* * *

Every day - or however long it was, since there was no measure of time here - , people Landed in a selected Haven. They were determined into the Gold, the warm and joyful, and the Gray, an abyss devoid of life, of laughter. Once someone Landed, they could never cross over to the other side. Many people who had passed before the man turned seventeen Landed in the Gold, and most directly after his seventeenth Landed in the Gray.

The first moments after the man's Landing were rather strange. He examined his hands curiously, eagerly. Moved his elbows and cracked his neck without a stinging pain he had grown accustomed to. And naturally, being who he was, he was also unfortunately accustomed to the way air zoomed out of any room he seemed to enter, the way people would go glassy-eyed as they realized they were meeting their precious savior, the hordes of people yelling his name and worshipping his steps.

"Over here!" "Let me see him!" "That's _never_ him!" "Oh, _yes_ it is!"

The boy turned away from the surging crowds of people he'd never met before, man and woman and creature alike, and walked towards a far smaller gathering an immeasurable distance away - although what was distance to him now - where he had seen only familiar faces he had long missed. One figure, a girl with flaming red hair, broke away from the throng and rushed at him full speed - the man grinned and picked her up as she rammed into his chest, sobbing tears of joy just as he was.

"I missed you so much!" the girl cried. "I wasn't there for you - I'm so sorry - I could only watch and I hated that -"

"I know, Gin, shh," the man soothed. He pressed his lips to the top of her head. "I know."

Ginny Potter nee Weasley grabbed the man's hand and looked up at him, eyes sparking with joy and love.

"Hermione and Ron can't wait to see you, and Sirius has been a nervous wreck ever since I got here - how long ago was it?" She cocked her head questioningly (and in the man's unbiased opinion, adorably).

"Six years," he croaked. The worst six years of his very long life. The glimmer in her eyes dimmed before it vanished again and her infectious smile took its place.

"And Remus and Tonks want to thank you for everything - and oh, your parents can't wait to meet you."

The man's body went slack.

Parents._ His_ parents.

He had known they were here, for where else could they be? But he had almost never hoped that he would even have a chance after death to meet them, not even after Hermione had raised his hopes at the tombstone so many years ago.

"Well, then," he whispered, "We might as well not keep them waiting, yeah?"

Slowly, quite slowly, the man and Ginny glided - for it wasn't right to call it a walk, not when he could fly in leaps and bounds - closer and closer to the familiar faces.

As he grew closer, two more lumps dislodged themselves and dashed straight for him - his sister and his brother, those who had preceded him two years in the final adventure.

The man saw his godfather, his honorary uncle and the woman who saved him. He saw people he had not met, who died for the same cause he championed. He saw the clumsy boy with the toad with his arms slung around his completely sane parents. He saw a paranoid old Auror that looked more relaxed now than the man had ever seen him.

He saw a giant blowing his nose in a bright yellow something the size of a circus tent.

He saw a silver-white beard and a bright purple cap, both comfortably settled on the same person.

He saw many wonders, reminders of the life he had lived on Earth.

But most wonderfully, he saw two familiar green eyes staring at him from a pale, oval-shaped face, framed by dark red hair. He saw tears in the hazel eyes of a man who appeared to be drinking him in just as a thirsty man in the desert would, confronted with a hidden oasis.

And so a young Harry James Potter looked his father straight in the eye for the first time that he could remember and grinned.

"We've got a_ lot _of catching up to do."

OoO

_"As for the third brother, Death searched for many years but was never able to find him. Only when he attained a great age did the youngest brother shed the cloak of invisibility and give it to his son. He then greeted Death as an old friend and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life."_


End file.
